June 17, 2018
07:14 am JST

Abe has already voiced readiness to boost spending to offset the pain from the planned sales tax increase, mostly through tax breaks and incentives for car and home purchases.

Please! Just how dumb do you think the public is Mr. Abe? "Pain?" You and the folks coming up with these "ideas" will never feel any pain, never!

If the public trusted YOU and your policies and the potential for growth, they WOULD spend, but they aren't spending because of your very policies that frighten them into thinking things are only going to get worse. Japanese consumers typically do not spend their hard earned cash on a whim.

If businesses had raised wages, real wages, and not one off bonus increases, and those increases stayed in place, people would be spending money like crazy! BUT companies haven't raised wages because all the while they keep taking the taxpayers money, making more money too, they DONT trust you Mr. Abe!

June 17, 2018
08:18 am JST

Someone please get this clown out of office. The only reason why we don't hear the asinine word, Abenomics anymore is because it's a failure, I don't know why the media isn't pressing him about this. Abenomics indeed, the arrogance of putting your name on an economic policy... time to eat crow and own it Abe!

June 17, 2018
09:30 am JST

June 17, 2018
03:24 pm JST

Japan is the world's 3rd wealthiest country but the wealth is owned and controlled by only a small handful of people who would NEVER dream of sharing it with anyone....there lies the problem !

The "wealth" of Japan, like it or not, is owned by the Bank of Japan, hence the people.

At least THAT is what the government wants everyone to believe. But remember too, that it isn't any individual who holds the real wealth, it's businesses and multinational corporations. Tax laws here prevent any individual from keeping that much wealth to themselves or their families. It's tied up in corporations.

June 17, 2018
03:54 pm JST

The subject is regarding the faux economic impact on japan. Individuals were and are still being fleeced by the government they trusted to improve their livelihood. Seeing as the democratic process dictates removal of incompetent leadership, japan is clearly not one seeing as the aforementioned incompetent leadership is still steering the ship towards doom. Otherwise there'd be some real change.

June 17, 2018
07:59 pm JST

June 17, 2018
09:18 pm JST

I read that entire article and I can only see one feasible alternative

Wages are barely rising, even as companies reap record profits from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies

Force wage rises and/or increase company tax. I know Japan likes to play it nice with Japan Inc, but the time has come to get serious. People need more money in their pockets or the government needs to collect more revenue to plow into infrastructure etc. Since Japans company tax rate is already above average, wage hikes would be better for a broad-based increase in consumption and since it is 60% of the economy you would get a broad pick up.

There is no excuse for Japan Inc to be sitting on massive piles of cash while the economy is struggling with growth rates of 0.2% a quarter.

June 18, 2018
06:29 am JST

As part of 'the people', I'm not feeling anything!

Quite so, because the money is just going to service debt on money your borrowed from yourself. That is one of the unique problems with Japan's debt and the way Abe spends money. He knows it's the "people's" money that he is spending, and since the people are not really feeling any pinch they are apathetic to his games.

This consumption tax increase WILL piss off a lot of folks, as costs rise, and their disposable income disappears, they will realize (hopefully) that it's the policies of the LDP that got them to this point.

Bigger problem though, is when the belt tightening comes, everyone is going to scream!

June 18, 2018
12:21 pm JST

June 17, 2018
08:13 am JST

Wages are barely rising, even as companies reap record profits from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies.

That's the knub of the problem. The stimulus will have limited effect if employers refuse to be a bigger part of this strategy to put the country on a sustained recovery path. Abenomics has definately worked, given the considerable improvement in the economy, including record-high corporate earnings.

But unless corporate greed can now be curtailed in a bid to raise consumption, it will hit a wall.

June 17, 2018
06:08 pm JST

The money-printing part of economics was supposed to pave the way for fiscal reform and deregulation, the “Third Arrow” of Abenomics. These never occurred, which doomed the program to failure.

Good, correct memory.

There has been scant deregulation since Abe cane to power despite his promises. The only time I hear of deregulation is when they talk about the cronyism scandal with Kake. If there was true deregulation there could not be such cronyism.

June 17, 2018
08:02 am JST

Raise the minimum wage just like needs to be done in US! Grow a pair!

it doesn’t work that way champ. You are making the same fundamental mistake that many people ignorant of economics make.

That mistake is believing that money or currency is the same thing as value. It is not. We use currency or money to exchange or store the value of labor. You can raise or lower the dollar or yen level for a particular amount of labor, but you cannot artificially raise or lower the value of labor.

Think of currency being a bucket, and value being the water carried inside. Raising the minimum wage is like giving workers bigger buckets. The only problem is that the amount of water inside the bucket doesn’t change.

The minimum wage is raised regularly, mainly when politicians are hungry for votes. Though the minimum wage is regularly changed, the quality of life minimum wage earners enjoy never changes. A fast food worker in Seattle earning $15 an hour has the same quality of life than a fast food worker had in 1980 when the minimum wage was $3,35 an hour.

Though a government can easily manipulate the value of currency, and raise wages for labor, it is utterly impossible for the government to regulate value.

Abe is learning that the hard way. He would love a weak yen, and more inflation, but, as Donald Trump has complained, Japan runs a trade surplus with America. Many dollars come in, little yen goes out. The excess of dollars lowers their value, with the dearth of yen increases it’s value.

The money-printing part of economics was supposed to pave the way for fiscal reform and deregulation, the “Third Arrow” of Abenomics. These never occurred, which doomed the program to failure.

June 17, 2018
03:13 pm JST

June 17, 2018
07:44 pm JST

"Escalating trade frictions from U.S. President Donald Trump's protectionist policies are taking a toll on business sentiment, which turned negative for the first time in a year, according to a government survey."

The Fed hiked rates Wednesday and said it sees two more increases this year, for a total of four. It also sees three rate hikes in 2019.

There are two problems with those calculations that could lead to a US recession by the end of 2019.

But I guess its Shinzo Abe fault?

The world economy is slowing down that is why Japan is slowdown as well.